An Israeli air strike killed Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Wishah on June 20 in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Two other Palestinians were also killed in the strike on a house there, the Gaza health ministry reported [1, 2, 3, 4].
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Wishah was a Hamas operative involved in sniper attacks and terror activities. An IDF spokesperson said, "The IDF confirms it carried out a strike on Ahmed Wishah, who was a Hamas terrorist. There will be a statement issued with further details" [1, 5, 6]. However, the military has not provided publicly available evidence to support this claim [5, 7, 6]. Family members, colleagues, and media rights groups reject the accusation, calling it a baseless smear campaign intended to justify targeting journalists [6, 8].
Al Jazeera condemned the killing, accusing Israel of a systematic policy targeting journalists and silencing truth. The network said, "This constitutes a new and flagrant violation of all international laws and norms, and reflects a continued systematic policy of targeting journalists and silencing the voice of truth" [5]. It also said, "We condemn the Israeli occupation army’s baseless accusations, which seek to justify its crimes against Al Jazeera journalists and cameramen in Gaza, most recently the killing of cameraman Ahmed Wishah" [6].
Ahmed Wishah was known for documenting the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. In April, after his brother Mohammed Wishah—also an Al Jazeera journalist—was killed by Israeli shelling, Ahmed called for an end to targeting journalists. He said, "Let the martyrdom of Mohammed Wishah be the end to the killing of journalists. This is my message to the world. Someone should stop the occupation from targeting journalists" [4]. Mohammed was killed on April 8, 2026, and was also accused by the Israeli military of involvement in Hamas rocket and weapons production [1, 9, 3].
Since the start of Israel's war on Gaza in October 2023, at least 260 Palestinian journalists have been killed, according to reports [5, 9, 4]. Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry reports 1,007 people have been killed by Israeli strikes since the last ceasefire in October [1, 9]. The Israeli military states it does not deliberately target journalists [7, 6, 8].
Mohammad Safadi, a relative of the Wishah family, said, "Is this really a ceasefire? We are civilians. I never held a weapon" [1].
The next public update from the IDF regarding the strike on Ahmed Wishah is expected soon, as mentioned in the IDF's statement promise of forthcoming details [5].
